


Hypothetical Situation

by DailyDaves



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-28
Updated: 2013-09-28
Packaged: 2017-12-27 20:03:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/983031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DailyDaves/pseuds/DailyDaves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because fate is bullshit and Michael Jones knows exactly why. He sees the red strings of fate every day, tied to people's hands and subsequently, every day he watches Gavin struggle as he tries to come to terms with his feelings for a certain Dan Gruchy, who happens to be on the other side of the string.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hypothetical Situation

**Author's Note:**

> It's long, but I didn't want to split it into more than one part since it was written to be read as a whole. As always, feedback is appreciated and prompts are open.

If there was a contest for most bullshit superpower ever, Michael would surely win it.

Honestly, he deserved a _fucking cake_ for this. For all of this. This was literally the most useless piece of shit power ever that did absolutely jack shit to help him out, though he supposed he should be grateful that it didn't harm him, either. Still, though, Michael Jones complained on a daily basis to the universe about the shitty superpower it'd given him and how utterly useless it was, and he didn't foresee himself ever going a day _without_ cussing out fate for this.

"Do you believe in fate?"

Michael had posed the question to Gavin one night while they worked to complete a co-op campaign one weekend at Michael's house. With both of them having a little (or more—a _lot_ ) over the limit, conversations often ventured into territory they usually didn't wander into, sometimes touching on topics involving the past before they'd come to work at the company. Gavin was easy to talk to and he was a better listener than he made himself out to be on camera. Michael glanced over at him, just in time to see him tilt his head back and laugh.

"That's a weird question, Michael."

He stretched his legs out on the couch, resting his feet in Michael's lap, earning a fake-disgusted look from him. The thread glinted on his right ring finger as he shifted into a different position.

"Answer it, shithead," He'd said, demanding an answer out of Gavin, not willing to let him skirt around the issue. In response, Gavin frowned, dropping his attention from the game on the television screen and he thought for a moment before glancing back up at Michael, meeting his eyes. He laughed again, that squeaking little giggle of his.

"Yeah, well, I guess so."

And Michael had just shook his head, knowing they were both too inebriated for this conversation, though the question and subsequent answer had stuck in his mind, even after Gavin passed out on the couch, his controller still in hand.

It was fucking useless. Of course it was fucking useless. He didn't know why he had it, why he'd been given this 'gift', but it was useless and stupid regardless, and Michael held fate with utmost disdain for it. That alone created a special kind of irony, catered specifically to his being, since his gift could easily be described as fate itself. The question Michael had prodded Gavin with was an opinion to a fact that only Michael knew. Oh yes, fate was definitely real, as Michael saw every day.

That night, he lay on his bed on his back, his hand raised into the air, his eyes focused on the back of it, just as he'd spent so many other nights. No sleep came to him, not for hours upon hours of lying there, trying to sleep. Fate was an asshole. He'd reached that conclusion ages ago. Fate was an asshole that had absolutely fucked him over. Though it didn't cause harm, that didn't mean it was harm _less_. It kept Michael up at night, wondering, wondering, wondering as he stared up, and he felt as though he knew too much about other people because of it, and he _hated_ that invasion of privacy.

He flexed his fingers silently. He could hear Gavin's snoring in the other room. The bed was empty besides himself and a couple pillows strewn to the other side of the bed. The thread glinted in the darkness, the almost transparent red thread catching the moonlight from the window just right. He muttered a string of curses to no one in particular and flexed his fingers again, always expecting to feel that pull of the string against his ring finger, but it would never come.

Goddammit, he'd never asked for this. He'd never wanted this. He didn't remember exactly when it'd started or if something had caused it, though he knew that there had been a point in time when he hadn't seen the strings and it had never been welcomed. There was never a time in which he said to himself 'Oh man, I'd really _love_ to see people's fate. Wouldn't that be just fucking _fantastic_?' And still, for some ungodly reason, he'd been given this shitty addition to his life.

It was amazing how much he knew about people from something that would usually seem so insignificant and little.

Another big surprise: 'red strings of fate' were actually fucking real. He saw them every day, connecting people together, sometimes pulled tight and taught and sometime winding and draping, always leading to the other person, their counterpart. Everyone had a string, and each day he saw them, pulling through the streets, following the people they were tied to, extending and pulling in different directions as people who were destined by fate walked by each other, passing each other by without even a second thought as Michael stood by and held himself back from calling out to them. He saw them every day, every waking moment, even in his dreams.

Everyone had one. A thin, almost transparent red string tied around their right ring finger, invisible to everyone but Michael. It led to another person, another person who was not only someone they would or already did love, but someone who was a part of them from birth, the second half of the whole. Through the years, Michael had learned that sole mates, people tied together by the goddamned red string, were really just one person in two bodies and everyone had that second half. He hated it. He hated knowing that and he hated being able to see it, to see married couples who's strings didn't lead to each other, to see fated people walk by each other and not giving each other so much as a second glance, to see people with broken strings, ones that didn't lead anywhere, signifying that their fated person was dead. It gave him knowledge and an understanding he didn't want, one he'd never asked for, a responsibility he could do nothing about.

Everyone had one. That included Michael.

He was the only person who could see them. He'd learned to ignore them and not let the sea of fated strings distract him or hinder him. At times, he even forgot they couldn't be seen by other people. The strings of fate were all around him, connecting and uniting people, and it was something that Michael just had to deal with. He had one, too, and he'd chosen to never follow it. He didn't like the thought of having an unfair chance to meet whoever was on the other end of that, especially when he hated the idea of these things in the first place.

The most notable reason of _why_ he hated them was manifested in Gavin Free himself.

Just a moment after Gavin entered his thoughts, he heard a crash from the living room, along with several other similar noises, which he identified as the idiot falling off the couch and most likely banging his head on the coffee table. A yell of pain came next, footsteps, and then Michael counted under his breath as Gavin found his way to the bedroom.

"You fell off the couch, you fuck," Michael's greeting was clearly sleepy and annoyed. They were both still over the limit and he wouldn't take Gavin home at this time, anyways. He had no choice but to move over a little and let Gavin stumble his way into the bed. It took less than a minute for Gavin to be drunkly snoring away again, a pillow separating them.

Goddamn, Gavin was the perfect example of why he willed fate to go fuck itself on a daily basis.

Gavin was his best friend and, contrary to popular belief as well as the fact that the stupid drunk was currently fast asleep in his bed, nothing more. Still his best mate, nonetheless, and the person Michael spent the most time with. As a result, he constantly felt like he was keeping a secret from him, which didn't sit well with him in the least. It sucked, knowing something about his best friend that not even he knew and not being able to tell him. The question he'd asked today—before asking, he'd seriously considered telling Gavin so he could put him out of his misery and make him stop trying to destroy his liver by getting drunk enough to avoid the issue.

The strings showed up on camera, too. Michael had watched all the videos for Gavin's side project, the project that had helped him get to the US. He knew _exactly_ who Gavin was fated to. And because of that, Gavin was the prime example of everything he hated about this. He couldn't tell him, he knew before he did, and worst of all, he watched him constantly struggle with it and had to sit there and watch through it. _That_ was why he hated the bullshit people liked to call fate.

As he finally drifted into sleep, he wondered about fate for perhaps the millionth time. If fate was to be believed, then everything was predestined, coded in a specific way to happen and unfold. Michael knew that fate, at least to some extent, was real. He didn't know how real, though. He didn't like to think that everything was predestined. It made life seem pointless and it made him feel as if he had no control over things. Instead, he liked to think that he was able to pull some strings, at least, and have some sort of control over his life. Still, being able to see the strings connecting people together gave him unwanted insight, letting him know that there was something pressing him down and pushing him down an even slightly predetermined path.

…

He heard the fighting as soon as he woke up, and he reasoned that that probably was _what_ woke him up in the first place. He heard it loud and clear, his head pounding as he came to—apparently Gavin had forgotten that there was actually another person trying to sleep and that it was said person's apartment, anyways. He was loud, his voice raised in a way Michael had never heard before, his accent ten times thicker than usual, and Michael knew immediately who he was arguing with. When the pounding of his head finally subsided enough, he propped himself up, blinking sleep and hangover from his eyes as he did so, the image of Gavin standing out on the balcony slowly coming into focus.

The fucking idiot had left the sliding glass doors halfway open, Michael realized, narrowing his eyes and hissing out a string of colorful swears as he reached for his glasses, his head throbbing again. He could hear everything—not just Gavin's yelling, which was probably waking up all the neighbors, but the response on the other end of the phone, meaning that Gavin either had the volume on his phone blasting or Dan was literally screaming into his end. Michael decided it was a mixture of the two.

"I swear to god, Gavin, if you hang up on me again I'll never fucking talk to you again."

It took Michael aback a little. He hadn't seen much of Dan other than his rare visits and the videos Gavin had, both private and posted online, but he viewed him as generally a calm and hard-to-rouse guy. Hearing him yell like that at Gavin—it was like he was intruding on something really personal between them, which was actually how Michael felt on a daily basis with everyone around him.

"We both know that's a load of bollocks."

That fucking red string of fate.

Michael hated it. He hated it with every fiber of his being. There was nothing he despised worse than fate itself and everything that followed it. It wasn't _fair_. For over a month now he'd had to sit and watch Gavin suffer, watch him constantly try to cover it up, watching him drown himself in vodka and scotch to avoid his own thoughts. The worst part about it? The fact that Gavin was a little bitch who could put on a front that everyone would believe, leaving Michael as the only one who knew that everything wasn't 'absolutely tippers' in Gavin-land. There was completely jack shit he could do about it, too, since Gavin wouldn't spill a fucking word to him. He couldn't help him. He couldn't tell him. He just had to sit there and _watch_.

That was exactly what he was doing now—watching as Gavin argued and fought and shouted and nearly screamed, the most emotionally-charged he'd ever seen him, for once clearly driven by what he felt rather than by whatever seemed logical to him. It reminded him that contrary to popular belief, Gavin did have feelings and it was because he never acknowledged them that they came out like this—angry and frustrated and so full of pure emotion that the things he was saying barely made it into sentences and coherent thoughts. Michael could barely understand him anymore, with Gavin's speech being a mixture of words he thought were important and half-formed thoughts.

"No, I don't—No! don't—Bloody hell, you can't! Last month, Dan!"

And then, things were silent. Gavin was left breathing hard, the dead silence on the other receiver deafening to Michael's ears. He hadn't the slightest idea what they were talking about, but whatever it was had the two of them really worked up. He desperately wanted to look away or maybe take all his blankets into the bathroom and sleep in the bathtub. He wasn't getting any more sleep out here. That was for sure.

Michael had to strain his ears to catch Dan's response. Even then it was muffled. "I can't handle this, Gavin. I can't—fuck. I can't do this. It's something different every damn day with you. You want to talk about what happened and then you don't and the next moment you're screaming at me and telling me whatever—"

The next second was the perfect embodiment of everything Michael Jones hated about his life. He watched Gavin hang up on Dan midsentence and then finally turn around to find Michael wide awake.

He prided himself in the tremendous amount of self-control he had not to punch Gavin in the fucking face and tell him to talk it out with Dan, and even more to not grab him by the collar and drill it into his head that yes, he was to some degree attracted to not just women and _yes_ he fucking had feelings for a certain Dan Gruchy and to fucking get over himself for once. Instead, he let it play out, letting Gavin come back in, silent and sitting on the bed, his head in his hands. Michael said nothing, a million words running through his head as he glanced at the thread around Gavin's finger again, the thread that led to somewhere in England, to wherever Dan was probably stomping around and brooding just as much as Gavin was.

That night, Gavin got fucking _hammered_ again (big surprise) and Michael found himself taking him home yet again (another big surprise). He dealt with drunk Gavin on a daily basis now. With the way the Brit was doing shots and downing vodka, Michael would have thought he was some American kid who'd just turned twenty-one if he didn't know any better. He was way over the limit by the time he ended up back at Michael's apartment, watching him play through last night's game again as Michael grew increasingly frustrated with him. Tonight was different, though. He was fed up. He was fed up and this morning had been his breaking point. He was finally going to force it out of Gavin.

He eased into the conversation not quite as gracefully as he would've liked, but Michael wasn't someone who beat around the bush with implications and scripted conversations. He jumped right into it in a moment of silence once Gavin was too busy either watching Michael or examining how much whiskey he had left before he'd have to get up and get more.

"Alright, let's have it, asshole. What was all that about this morning?" He didn't look at Gavin when he said it, but he _knew_ he'd taken him by surprise. He just barely caught the little sharp intake of breath that announced his unguarded surprise, and felt his eyes on him. He didn't have to look to know that Gavin was shocked at the question. Idiot. He'd probably thought that Michael wouldn't mention it, since he hadn't said anything about it this morning after it'd all happened.

"It was just a bit of a little argument, that's all."

"Bullshit," Michael immediately called him out. It was nothing he didn't expect. He'd fully anticipated for Gavin to lie through his fucking teeth and he hadn't been disappointed. He finally paused the game after getting shot down one too many times for his liking and turned to Gavin, fixing him with a hard stare. "My neighbors went to management over your 'little argument', so you can drop the fucking formalities and tell me why the hell you've been drowning yourself in whiskey these past few days."

If there was one thing Michael knew about himself, it was that he had a certain way with words. He was blunt, always telling it how it was without making it nice or pretty and he didn't hesitate to open his mouth and say his opinion. And he knew Gavin specifically liked that about him and it was part of the reason he hung around him so much. His way of persuasion usually worked on Gavin, though it didn't hurt that he was inebriated beyond comprehensible thought.

"'s nothing, Michael," Gavin insisted, slurring his words. "Really. Nothing."

Out of all the times Gavin had pissed him off, out of all the times he'd purposefully riled him up, out of all the times he'd made Michael nearly break his controller or keyboard, _this_ was the time that Michael really wanted to punch Gavin right in that stupid nose of his. Maybe it was the alcohol he'd drank to deal with Gavin in the first place or the fact that he was finally forcing it out of him, but he felt like resorting to violence would actually help the situation. He felt a pang of guilt, then, and tried to breathe evenly and get himself to calm down. He couldn't afford to get riled up right now.

Instead, he opted for another course of action. He set his controller down on the table and sat back, never dropping eye contact. "Alright. We can both just sit here, then. I'm not going to say another fucking word until you tell me, though."

Gavin's expression showed his confusion, betraying his annoyance, as well, "A bloody Mexican stand-off, then?"

Michael didn't respond. Nor did he speak for the next few hours. Gavin tried to make idle conversation, which quickly turned into him talking to himself and then trailed off into more silence. He was clearly uncomfortable with the quiet, from the way he'd glance at Michael and shift nervously around, eventually ending up stretched out with his feet on Michael's lap again. Neither one of them spoke, and for the second time that day, Michael let himself stare at the string tied to Gavin's ring finger.

If there was one thing they had in common, it was that both of them were wildly persistent, Michael in his silence and Gavin in his constant denial. Michael had seen the strings for years and years and he'd kept his silence about them the entire time. He didn't want to interfere with whatever bullshit fate had planned. The problem with breaking his silence was that he was terrified of the unwritten laws of fate he'd break. Clearly, not everyone was meant to know about the strings of fate. Michael could reason that perhaps he was the only one who knew, since he had no one to prove him otherwise.

Gavin, however, was persistent in his denial. Fate was a little bitch and as Michael had seen, everyone had someone fated to them. The ugly truth, however, the one that hadn't made it into the fairytale myth, was that not everyone met that person, though they did exist or at least had at some point in their lives. Sometimes it was fate for them to lead a life where they never found that missing half. Gavin, however deep into denial he was, was one of the lucky ones. He'd already met the person on the other side of that string. That luck was bittersweet and short-lived, though, since Gavin, the British idiot who insisted he was solely into girls, had Dan as his other half and Michael watched him struggle with that on a daily basis.

In the end, he truly was doing this to help Gavin. He didn't want to see him end up making a huge mistake that would make him unhappy and regretful for the rest of his life. Fate had given him the chance, had led him down the path to meet that other person, but Gavin was too far down the rabbit hole to fucking take it. It was because of that that Michael was finally interfering. He wasn't going to let Gavin be a stupid dumbass and fuck up what could be the best thing to happen to him.

It took _hours_ , so long that Michael's eyes started to droop and he was suspicious that Gavin was already dozing with his head laid back on the arm rest of the sofa. He could feel the tension in the air still. The silence that surrounded them was hard and suffocating and Michael had to tell himself over and over not to break, that he needed to do this. It was around the third hour that Michael was pulled out of his half-sleep by the sound of Gavin's voice.

"It wasn't supposed to be anything."

It was perhaps the clearest thing Gavin had said all night, and Michael still had no idea what it meant. He opened his eyes, not remembering when or why he'd shut them, blinking the sleep from himself. Gavin had his head leaned over the side of the couch, his legs still in Michael's lap, eyes fixated on the ceiling. His hands fidgeted, playing with the band of his watch as he paused, not even sitting up to look at Michael.

"I told him. I told him it was nothing. I told him it wasn't anything at all. I told him to never talk about it or repeat it and that it was to stay behind that door."

He was starting to pick out bits and pieces, starting to put the puzzle together, "You two—"

Gavin's green eyes flickered in his direction and he cut him off, " _Talked_." Michael let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. He wasn't really up for one of those 'we banged and then I realized I had feelings' clichés.

"Talked. You two talked."

"We talked. It wasn't a sudden thing, Michael. I know what you're thinking. I'm not _stupid_."

"Yeah. I know." It was the calmest Michael had been all night. Something seemed healed and restored between them, something that had been missing the past few weeks. It made him relieved, helping him think about the situation rationally. "I know you're not stupid."

Gavin finally raised his head to look at Michael and it was immediately obvious he was a lot less drunk than before. His words were measured, planned, controlled, "I didn't suddenly decide one night that Dan meant a lot to me. It didn't just occur to me one day. I don't know when I realized it was happening, but I definitely should've put a stop to it when I could've. It's all blowing its load in my face now and I really don't want to think about it. And if you repeat any of this, I'll get Geoff to fire you."

That was one hell of a big and empty threat, but Michael just nodded, not wanting to interrupt him.

"He came to Austin a month ago. We went to a bar and then a club." Michael nodded again, remembering that. He'd left early to escort a puking Kerry back home. Things were starting to fall into place the more Gavin talked. "When you left, the crowd started to bother me the way it used to when I was a kid and things got kind of bad from there. Dan took me to a back room to calm down and—"

"I'm sorry, man, I should've been there," It was no secret that Gavin didn't like being alone, though it was lesser known the being alone in a crowd of people occasionally made him panic. It was one of those things Gavin didn't talk about and that no one forced. He'd had a panic attack and Dan had known how to take care of him and Michael could see right away that they hadn't left that back room even after Gavin had calmed down.

"Shut up, Michael." And he did. He let Gavin go on, letting him talk and listening to what he had to say. "It wasn't supposed to happen. I hadn't really realized anything had been gradually happening until we talked. I don't know, Michael. I told him that I didn't want him to go back into the military and how much I worried about him when he was deployed and how I knew damn well I didn't want to go through that again. I told him a lot of shit and I'm not even sure if I meant it all. I said if he moved out here I could get him a place at the company and we could move into an apartment together and I'd finally be happy without having to bloody _worry_ about him all the time."

Michael was, for once, left speechless. He'd expected to get _maybe_ a short explanation out of Gavin, but nothing like this. Gavin was actually _talking_ to him, and it made Michael astonished and wordless, listening to all of Gavin's thoughts and emotions laid out before him. He wanted to say something, anything—maybe some words of reassurance—but nothing would come to him. His silence spoke for him, leaving a shell-shocked pregnant pause in the air that spoke volumes in the absence of Michael's words.

"I don't know," Gavin repeated himself. "I really—I don't know. We talked for hours and a lot of stuff came out. Goddamn, Michael, I told him I loved him. I made an absolutely _horrid_ mistake and bloody ruined _everything_. I told him to forget it the next morning and that it was just because of the alcohol. I'm a stupid _dolt_ , aren't I, Michael?"

"Yeah. Yeah, you are," Michael ran a hand through his curly hair. What Gavin had said to Dan wasn't really the surprising part. It was just the fact that he'd actually talked to Michael about it. "You're a fucking dumbass for keeping this all inside."

"No, I meant—"

"I _know_ what you meant," Michael interrupted quickly. "You're so stubborn and wrapped up in your own head that you don't fucking see that I don't want you to goddamn suffer, Gavin. You're _not_ fucking stupid for telling Dan all that. You're stupid for not telling me what was bothering you—"

"Michael, he's going back into the military!" Gavin's voice was loud, almost squeaking, and the emotion in his voice was even higher than this morning. He stared hard at Michael and then exhaled hard, clearly trying to regain his composure. "He's had enough of it. Can't blame him."

Fuck. Now _that_ did take him for surprise. Gavin was obviously more upset about it than he'd let on today. The final remaining pieces fell into place, and Michael understood why he'd been so distraught while on the phone with Dan and why he'd hung up on him. Both of them seemed to be at some sort of breaking point and Michael had just thrown himself in the middle of it. In Ray's own words, no way in, no way out.

It was nearly four in the morning. Michael sighed and gathered himself, "Hey, we'll talk tomorrow at lunch when you're sober, alright? I promise."

Gavin seemed to consider that for a moment, and then nodded.

That was it. Michael got downed the rest of his own glass of whisky and changed into more comfortable clothes, checking his phone to see a text from Geoff consisting of 'We're getting a new hire in a few days. Name's Lindsay. Be nice to her.' And then circled back around to the living room to see Gavin asleep on the couch. He threw a blanket over him and shoved a pillow under his head before retreating to bed himself.

He was helping Gavin. Or, at least, he was trying to. This was the first time he'd ever interfered. If it hadn't been for seeing the red strings, he would've never been able to see Gavin's distress in the first place since the clever idiot could put on a front that could fool anyone, and he'd never done anything to push two people together. It felt strange, though not wrong to be doing so. Just—odd. He was meddling with fate, perhaps in ways he shouldn't be, and acting outside of his usual perimeters. He wondered what exactly he was going to tell Gavin tomorrow, how he could possibly give him any sort of advice or reassurance, especially with the fact that he'd caught him at a breaking point, when Dan was threatening to go back to the military.

There was really only one course of action he could think of, and he was terrified to take it. He didn't know what would happen if he did or if whatever bullshit laws fate applied to the universe would allow for it. He'd promised, though, and he wasn't _actually_ an asshole, no matter how much he came across as one. He cared about Gavin and about his happiness and goddamn, he just wanted him to be happy for once in his goddamn life and _fuck_ he knew it was going to be hard. From what Gavin had told him today, things were messed up and all over the fucking place and constantly blowing up in Gavin's face. He'd made a mess out of everything and Michael wanted to help him out, but he didn't have the slightest idea on where to start.

It was nearly four thirty in the morning. He had work in the morning and he'd have to drive a hungover Brit with him. And yet, he was still wide awake. His eyes blurrily focused again on his own hands, on the string connecting him to someone, somewhere. As he often did, he found himself wondering who was at the other end and if he'd ever find them and what they'd be like. Gavin and Dan were best friends ( _were_? Was that supposed to be past tense? Michael could only hope that Gavin hadn't ended up fucking that over completely) and they were a perfect example of the whole _other half_ deal. Michael always wondered what it was like, never knowing that feeling of completeness and always feeling like a voyeur, looking in on it from afar.

He drifted to sleep like that, dreaming of red like roses and red, like the strings he saw every day.

…

"Hey, Michael! Did you hear about the new hire?"

There was an audible _thump_ from the desk to his right. He easily identified the sound as Gavin banging his head against his desk at the sound of Ray's overly-excited and clearly intentionally annoying voice. He'd slept the entire way to work, as well, his gold plastic sunglasses over his eyes and a sweatshirt pulled over his head. If there was ever a photo of the perfect hungover person, it would be Gavin Free right in this moment. Michael could almost feel bad for him, though he remembered the fact that Gavin had done this to himself, anyways.

Michael turned in his chair to look at Gavin slumped over in his chair just in time to see Geoff walk through the door and fucking _slam_ his bag down on Gavin's already hole-riddled desk, making him squeal and jump like a frightened animal. Ray howled with laughter as Gavin covered his ears and Michael couldn't help but to crack a smile, too.

"Filming in fifteen, kids," Geoff told them, giving Gavin's chair a swift kick as he passed by, making his howl as his chair was slammed further under the desk, essentially stuck. They were off then, scrambling for mics and cords, leaving Michael no more time to think or ponder.

It wasn't until lunch that Michael found the time to talk with Gavin, just as he'd expected. He found him in the kitchen mulling about and held up his wallet, "Let's go. Your choice."

He'd put in no room for argument or discussion. He left soon after, Gavin on his heels just behind him. After numerous arguments involving where to go to lunch, they finally wound up in some shitty Italian restaurant that Gavin loved.

It was only then that Michael realized he hadn't specifically planned anything to say. That was going to make this conversation all the more difficult. Last night, he'd realized he needed to help, or Gavin would fuck things up beyond repair and regret it for the rest of his life. He needed to interfere. There was no way he and Dan could work things out alone, and Michael couldn't stand the silence anymore. He realized there was really only one option left, since he had no advice at hand and reassurance alone wouldn't help Gavin. He thought about it over and over, each time arriving at the same conclusion. He had to do this. He had no idea how to or what the consequences would be, but he had to.

Fucking fate.

"Gavin, I need you to shut up and listen to me for the next few minutes. No jokes or shitty British humor. Got it?" He watched Gavin hesitate, a look of realization spread across his face, the tension in the air swelling tenfold. He'd had to have known it was coming. He'd been tense the entire way here. Now it was coming to a point, a point in which Michael knew he had to make it or break it. He had nothing planned, no way to make Gavin believe what he was about to say. He was just going to have to wing it, and when Gavin finally nodded in agreement, that was exactly what Michael did.

"Do you believe in fate?" It was quite possibly the worst opening ever, but he wanted to bring Gavin back to that drunken conversation a few days ago, when Michael had first bounced the question off of him. "Like fated people or destinies or any of that bullshit."

Gavin's response was a shrug, "Nah. Not really, anyways. Fate always seemed like a load of bollocks to me."

Michael laughed, breaking his ultra-serious demeanor because god _damn_ Gavin had hit that nail right on the head. "You're finally fucking right about something."

There was a lingering pause after. Gavin tapped his fingers on the table, fixing Michael with an interested look. This conversation probably wasn't going the way Gavin had expected it would, and Michael could say the same for himself. He was happy for that. They were both calm and talking like adults and for once, completely sober. He could only hope it continued like this, though he had no idea where he was going with this.

"Why'd you ask me if you don't believe in it either?"

Gavin's fingers tapped a rhythm onto the wood of the table, providing back noise to Michael's whirling thoughts.

"I never said I don't believe in it. Fate is a load of shit, though," He agreed. It took almost everything he had in him to proceed with the next thing he said and not to back out completely and just offer Gavin whatever shitty advice he had in him. "But it is real."

There was no pause. Michael held his breath, not daring to move as Gavin replied, "So you do believe in it. But it's a load of crap? I'm not quite following here, Michael."

Michael hadn't expected him to. He struggled to come up with the right words and to say them. In his head, everything sounded unbelievable and really fucking sappy, which was part of the reason he'd never told anyone. He hadn't thought anyone would ever believe him, but he'd decided to try his luck with Gavin and see what happened. He had to figure out what to say, first, but everything sounded so ridiculous and delusional. "Look, it'll make sense in a bit. There's this thing. You ever hear of the red string of fate shit?"

"Yeah," Gavin said slowly, his expression telling Michael he was trying desperately to work things out in his head. "Some imaginary string that connects people together in fairytales or whatever, yeah? Are you trying to tell me that—"

"Shut up and let me finish," Michael interrupted, a lot less annoyed than he sounded. There was no easy way to say this and Michael was already tired of beating around the bush with him. "You're not going to believe me when I say this, but I'm going to anyways and you're going to listen to me and not say a goddamned word until I've finished. Unfortunately, fate is real. I don't know to what extent. I don't know how much is preplanned. All I know is that I was given some bullshit 'gift' and now I can see the fucking red strings of fate. Great, right? No. It's the worst fucking useless superpower ever, but you know what? It's there and I know I sound insane right now, but you said you'd listen to me, so I want you to at least hypothetically _consider_ the possibility that that fate string myth is real."

Then, he waited.

He didn't know exactly what he was waiting for—maybe for the world to just collapse on itself or for reality to get all fucked up because Michael revealed something that only he knew. Nothing happened, though, aside from the incredulous look Gavin was fixing him with, accompanied by the skeptical raised eyebrow. There was no protest from the universe or fate itself. Everything stayed the same and the world kept on moving on. He didn't know what he'd been expecting, but whatever unspoken laws of fate he'd just broken apparently hadn't come with some sort of deadly and drastic consequence. A subsequent wave of relief washed over him.

Gavin kept silent, as Michael had told him to. He wasn't done. Oh, no, he was far from it. He could tell exactly what Gavin was thinking from the disbelief written all over his face. He said nothing, though, letting Michael carry on as he tried to explain and make him believe him. This was what he'd known would happen, but it was also best case scenario. Gavin was actually listening for once.

"Fuck. Yeah, I know, Gavin. I know I sound like a fucking lunatic," He had little idea what to say, but he talked on, only hoping he was getting through to him on one level or another. "Just. Hear me out. I don't know why me. I don't know when, but it was probably in my mid-teens when I first started seeing them. That's all, too. Weird, right? I just see these fucking red strings tied to everyone's hand on their ring fingers," He held up his right hand to show Gavin. "And they lead to whoever fate put them with. That person is supposed to be their other half or whatever. It's not complete shit. People who find their other half are the people that have been married decades and I can always tell when a couple's gonna break up—"

When Gavin opened his mouth to cut him off, Michael very nearly panicked, but what came out of him wasn't what he'd expected, "So. That couple that lived next to you. That's how you knew their marriage wasn't going to last? I mean, going with the hypothetical that you see those strings."

Michael nodded. He hadn't thought a bet would be his saving grace.

"I lost a hundred quid to you in that bet, Michael!"

He had to fight not to laugh, "I never said I play fair. They weren't connected. I knew they wouldn't make it a year. I knew I could make some money off of you, though."

"Oh, piss off," But Gavin was quiet after that. Michael took a moment of quiet to assess what was happening. Gavin seemed to be—maybe believing him? It was reassuring. He was at least taking things into consideration like a normal fucking adult. He was listening to what Michael had to say and that probably meant he was willing to do what Michael said to fix things with Dan.

"Anyways. What I'm saying is that everyone has someone on that other side of the string and you're not stupid. We both know exactly where I'm going with this," It was another sort of stab in the dark, but at least he had basis this time.

Gavin didn't say a word. His expression and silence spoke when he didn't, though. He knew exactly what Michael was leading him into. He knew what was going on.

Michael just nodded, "It shows up in video, too. You're lucky, Gavin."

Silence.

"Hypothetically…" Michael barely caught Gavin's mutter. He'd dropped Michael's eye contact, staring down at the table. He stayed like that for a few minutes and Michael let him, the conversations of people around them filling in the void. He let Gavin think and he was ready when Gavin looked back up at him, "Hypothetically, it was unavoidable, then."

"There you go. Yeah, it was unavoidable so whatever you said a month ago would've come out anyways. Fate's a little bitch, isn't it, Gavin?" Gavin laughed. In the midst of the serious conversation, it was at least nice to hear. Michael smiled, too, more relief washing over him in waves. "It also means that whatever you're feeling is unavoidable, too. And real. And fucking requited. But mostly unavoidable. So you know what that means?" It was so easy to slip from telling Gavin the one thing he'd hid from everyone into their usual sort of conversation tone. "It means you can stop being such a stupid asshole and pull your head out of your ass. You can stop being all confused about yourself and shit and go and make amends with him. Jesus Christ, stop fucking beating yourself up all over this and just fucking make up with him."

Gavin seemed to consider it for a few moments. Michael in the meantime felt a small rush of pride. He'd actually given him some not-too-shitty advice for once. He might've actually helped. He'd finally told someone about what he saw and it had turned out better than he'd expected, even though he'd used it as a last resort. The universe hadn't come crashing down around him and Gavin was actually taking what he said into consideration.

"What now, then?" He asked slowly. It was clear he was still trying to comprehend everything. "What should I do? Hypothetically, I mean."

Michael had an answer for that, too, one he'd thought out last night while restlessly tossing and turning, "Call him. Tell him to come down here. Tell him you're going to work it out. Tell him that you'll pay for his plane tickets if he comes down here for a couple weeks."

And with that, the conversation was done. The next day, while Michael and Ryan were struggling to set up a desk for the new girl, Gavin tapped him on his back and told him when Dan would land and that he'd need Michael to drive him to the airport. Michael had never felt more at ease than he did in that moment.

Then, he realized it. The answer to his question of _why_ was he able to see the strings of fate. In that moment, it became obvious, blindingly, painstakingly _obvious_. The reason was fate itself. He'd long ago accepted that things happened for some bullshit reason fate had planned down the road. Michael was no different. The reason he could see the strings was because of Gavin's stupidity. Interference had been necessary between Dan and Gavin. Gavin had been covering everything up like the dumbass he was. Michael was the only one who knew anything was wrong. Gavin would've still been struggling with everything and probably continuing to fuck things up if Michael hadn't told him. He was able to see the strings of fate so he could play his part and help Gavin out. It was a shitty reason, but Michael couldn't deny he was happy to finally have one.

…

"Gavin, hurry the fuck _up_!" Michael yelled into the office, fed up with Gavin's pissing about. They had to be at the airport in a half hour and it was forty-five minutes away. Gavin was hurrying to shove his laptop into a bag so he could get whatever done on the car-ride there. Michael just groaned and yelled again in annoyance. Gavin scrambled about the least bit faster.

"Goddammit, let's _go—_ "

There was a laugh behind him, making Michael go silent. He spun on his heels as Gavin yelled back a response, but Michael didn't catch it. He barely heard his voice. Across the hall from the Achievement Hunter office was the editing office and there, sitting at the newly set-up and slightly unstable-looking desk, was the new hire that had been the talk of the company. Michael remembered her name. Lindsay.

"Hey there, shouty!" She greeted, calling out to him from where she was leaned over, looking into the opposite office where Michael had been busy screaming at Gavin. He no longer paid any mind to Gavin and smiled at her, a genuine expression. This was the first time he'd seen her. Today was her first day.

"Lindsay, right?" The words came easily to him, rolling off his tongue in the most natural way. "Maybe you can get the company Brit to move faster than I can." He pointed with his right hand behind him, back at Gavin and—

The string.

His string. It hung loose, no longer pulled taught and tight. The other end led directly into the office, tied on the right hand of Lindsay Tuggey as she removed her headphones to talk with him. She was his other end, the person Michael had spent countless hours wondering and worrying about. She was here, in the office, the new girl that had been the talk of the entire company. She flashed a brilliant smile at him and Michael fell wordless. He'd never imagined their meeting like this—accidental and natural and everything he wanted.

"Hey, I could use someone to help me with Gav. It's your lunch break, right?" He heard himself saying the words, though he hadn't thought to say them. Natural. Easy.

"I'm down."

And then Gavin was pulling at his arm harshly, yanking him towards the doors and Lindsay laughed and followed behind, the string between them hanging loose and drooping, connecting the two of them with fate.

In that moment, Michael could think of no way he'd be happier.


End file.
